NEW YEAR CONTEMPLATIVE CONTACT RETREAT
Skalka u Doks, Czech Republic
28th Decemeber 2024 – 2nd January 2025
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What happens with our movement if we enter the dance from a place of Stillness?
What happens with our speech if we enter the words from a place of Silence?
Come and welcome the New Year with us at the Contemplative CI Retreat!
Set in a cosy retreat venue at the north-west of the Czech Republic, embraced by a gentle winter landscape, the retreat offers a nourishing space for CI dancers who wish to spend the end-of-year transition resting, wintering, playing, exploring… and dancing together!
Held within a simple container, the retreat will provide plenty of space for jamming, researching and contemplating, supported by periods in silence.
In that way, the retreat is intended as a continuum, where our main practice is the art of listening, softening, allowing, unknowing…
Together we will embark on a journey, arching the worlds of stillness and movement, being emptied, being filled…
Presence will be our compass.
Contact improvisation our vessel.
Silence will be our Teacher.
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SILENCE
Silence is an empty container that holds and connects.
It is a shared ground we can rise from and return to.
It invites us to enter a raw and open mode of being, readying our receptivity and availability.
It encourages us to relax into the unknown, waking our playfulness and curiosity.
The themes we might want to explore during the jams and practice sessions may be for example:
What can I hear in Silence?
What happens when we enter the jam from this shared field of Silence?
How Silence shapes my attention, movement, interaction..?
We will observe silence every day until 12.30.
We will transition from silence into a spoken word during small group sharings after the morning jam.
It is up to each person how much they choose to engage in talking during the afternoons.
The New Year will be welcomed in all-day silence on the 31st (on and off the dance floor).
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THE ART OF IMPROVISATION
Most of our practice time will be held within a simple format of jam.
It is a beautiful opportunity to dive deep into the very essence of improvisation, relax into the unfolding process and research the vast expanse of landscapes that jamming may encompass.
We are envisioning jam as a collectively held space, nourished by care and shared interest in what is taking place – inside ourselves and inside the whole room as we jam. Whether dancing in contact or solo, resting or witnessing the space, in stillness or motion, we invite all participants to become the active co-creators of the space.
We are envisioning a jam as a continuous journey, which we enter and exit together. A jam, where every movement, every gesture and every experience becomes part of the composition.
What if, whilst jamming as usual, we could be also creating an effortless piece of art? A field of magic? A mosaic of diverse shapes and colours that are all part of one whole?
